Efficiently delivering agricultural products, such as seeds and fertilizer, to the ground in large areas typically requires a variety of machinery. A tractor may be used to push or pull a ground engaging tool, such as seeder or other planting device, for evenly distributing the agricultural products using a pressurized seed or fertilizer delivery system. The ground engaging tool may, in turn, receive a steady supply of the agricultural products from a pressurized air cart or other storage element that is also typically being pushed or pulled by the tractor.
In agricultural operations, it is desirable to minimize the amount of downtime as much as possible. For delivering agricultural products, this often means using an air cart or other storage element with ever increasing volumes for holding the agricultural products. For example, modern air carts may have a capacity over 500 bushels, thereby allowing even longer operating times.
However, towing an air cart that is too large throughout a field requires significant horsepower which results in inefficiency. On the other hand, having an air cart that is not large enough can save horsepower, but require more costly downtime. For example, it could require at least 30 minutes for filling exceptionally large tanks. In addition, filling typically requires stopping the air cart, bringing a supply vehicle nearby, moving a loading auger into position, starting hydraulics to drive the auger to fill the air cart, verifying correct loading amounts, and re-securing the system to resume field operation, at the point they were stopped. This is lost time that could be used for greater productivity in the field.
What is needed is a technique for keeping an air cart full and in operation for as long as possible while minimizing the amount of downtime.